


The Price of Breathing

by silenceindetroit



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-04 22:34:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16355522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silenceindetroit/pseuds/silenceindetroit
Summary: His laugh was so sweet. Always full of innocence, bursting with the gleeful joy he could never contain. So many lengths had been gone to over the years in order to make it ring out as much as possible. How strange it was to think now the one triggering it was Connor, slinging him over his shoulders like he weighed no more than the groceries they'd carried home the other day.“Daddy! Look how tall I am! I can see the house!”Hank let out a deep chuckle at the hand that stretched out to point behind Connor's head. “Any airplanes up there?” he asked.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His laugh was so sweet. Always full of innocence, bursting with the gleeful joy he could never contain. So many lengths had been gone to over the years in order to make it ring out as much as possible. How strange it was to think now the one triggering it was Connor, slinging him over his shoulders like he weighed no more than the groceries they'd carried home the other day.
> 
> “Daddy! Look how tall I am! I can see the house!”
> 
> Hank let out a deep chuckle at the hand that stretched out to point behind Connor's head. “Any airplanes up there?” he asked.

His laugh was so sweet. Always full of innocence, bursting with the gleeful joy he could never contain. So many lengths had been gone to over the years in order to make it ring out as much as possible. How strange it was to think now the one triggering it was Connor, slinging him over his shoulders like he weighed no more than the groceries they'd carried home the other day.

“Daddy! Look how tall I am! I can see the house!”

Hank let out a deep chuckle at the hand that stretched out to point behind Connor's head. “Any airplanes up there?” he asked.

“At least ten—” A shriek of delight cut through the air as Connor tilted forward without warning, somersaulting the boy over his shoulder with the quickest of freefalls, only to catch him the second after and lower his feet to the ground. “Do it again!” Cole cried breathlessly. His hands reached up to tug on Connor's forearm, letting his weight dangle as if he were clinging to a rope swing.

A smile spread across Connor's face, even as he pulled his wrist gently from Cole's grip. “You have to walk the rest of the way,” he replied. “How else will you be prepared for Yosemite?”

Hank expected a whine of protest, or perhaps a remark of excitement; next summer's trip was all Cole had been able to talk about for months. He blinked in surprise when his son instead ran ahead of them without a word, the tall grass parting for him at his torso like the Red Sea for Moses.

Connor turned back to where Hank had fallen a few steps behind, his vigorous pace from before slowing to a halt. “He really likes you, you know,” Hank said as they looked at each other. “He always wanted a big brother. Never stopped asking me if he could get one, every Christmas.”

Connor's body grew still, as motionless as the grass around them despite the wind that whined in Hank's ears. The seconds passed, no reply offered, until Hank let his gaze wander back to the direction Cole had run off in.

The field was empty.

“He loves you, Hank.”

His eyes flickered back; Connor was closer now, no more than two feet of empty space between them, though Hank could have sworn he hadn't seen him move. He somehow knew the words that would leave the android's mouth next, but still he replied, “He tells me every night.”

“Do you trust me?”

The light around them had shifted, distorting Connor's outlines, a shift in the darkness. A muffled shout for anesthesia echoed somewhere far away.

Hank turned away, searching for some hint of where his son might have gone. There was a wall to his right. That was good. Walls were sturdy. Walls didn't spin like the rest of the world had begun to.

“I can't do this if you don't trust me, Hank,” Connor pressed again.

A grunt escaped Hank's lips as he let himself fall back against the wall. “You're not,” he tried, but his mouth had gone dry. The spinning had turned to a dull throb, pulsing. Like a weak heartbeat. “You're not a surgeon,” he managed before his eyes shut, trying to curb his dizziness. He stretched a hand out into the darkness.

The android's strong hands gripped him just below the shoulders. “Connor,” he almost pleaded as they sank down to the floor together. “Promise me you can save him.”

Connor's voice was steady in his ear, strong with reassurance. “I won't let anything happen to him.”

The desperation that had been building in Hank's lungs left in a single, heavy sigh. He leaned back, eyes still shut—or just the world truly gone dark?—searching for the familiar sturdiness of the wall to press against his shoulder blades. It never came.

That was okay, he thought as he felt himself lower all the way down, sinking until he was laying against the floor. Cole would be okay. Connor had promised.

“Hank.”

The lights pressing against his eyelids were gone, but his eyes wouldn't open.

He reached a hand up to rub the life back into his face until he could blink the darkness into focus. A familiar outline hovered beside him, though something was off. He frowned, puzzling over what it could be.

“You were dreaming,” Connor murmured. “It's alright.”

“What—what time is it?” he rasped.

“Four-thirty.”

That's what it was. Connor's LED was gone, no longer a beacon in the blackness. How could he have forgotten?

“Go back to sleep, Hank. You won't remember this in the morning.”

“How... do you know?” Hank asked, but the words were thick, sleep already pulling him back under.

Even in the dark, the sadness in Connor's eyes was heavy. “You never do.”

“Did you save him?”

He felt a hand come to rest against his forearm as his eyes closed. “Yes, Hank,” Connor whispered as he drifted back into the nothingness. “Everything's fine now.”

 

 


	2. Note from the author (to you!)

Dear reader,  
Sorry to be That Asshole™, but I've decided that, for the time being, to leave The Price of Breathing as a standalone one-chapter. Here’s why:

My timing for starting the sequel ended up not being great. I had another project I’d started on that I’ve now been dedicating my time to, as it’s at the forefront of my priorities right now being an Actual Novel.

But also, I feel the quality of the story wasn’t up to my regular par.

Don’t get me wrong, if I return to TPOB it’ll still be following the same plot structure as before, but with… More Structure. I have a better picture looking back on how the pieces should fit together, and that would require a bit of a rewrite. Which, at the moment, I just don’t have the emotional/artistic capacity to juggle simultaneously with my other project.

Also also, the topic. I didn’t realize how close to home a lot of the topics I planned to touch on with Connor would hit, and it was growing increasingly difficult to dig into them to write without triggering traumatic feelings from when I was younger.

I deeply apologize for disappearing on you. I went into TPOB without truly having a picture of what I was going to have to buckle down for. I do hope to eventually return to it.

If you’re interested in keeping up with my other stuff not dbh related send me a dm on tumblr. Regardless, thank you for all the love over the past several months. You guys got my motivation to tell stories up and kicking again, and I can never thank you enough for that. Peace love and positivity my homies!


End file.
